Holbeck (Beeston) - Tracks in Time, the Leeds Tithe Map Project

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Joan, 72: ‘I came to visit my sister in Huddersfield, from my home inGuernsey, in 1956. I met my husband while I was visiting and his motherlived in Holbeck. After we were married, she got us a house in Ingram Road.They’ve demolished the terrace now, and built new houses, but I alwaysliked living there. Domestic Street was near by and it used to be full ofshops. You didn’t have to go into town at all. Everybody knew everybody,and you could just get everything you needed right there in Holbeck.’At the end of Wooler Grove, re-enter Cross Flatts Park through the gateahead, and turn left, following the footpath up the side of the park.Upon meeting with concretesteps, once leading to an ornategreenhouse, go to your left.(Routes for wheelchairs arepresent.) Continue past the nextexit from the park, on your left,and pass a path leading off toyour right.As we saw at the beginning ofthe trail, Cross Flatts Park hasbeen an important part of Beeston Site of the former greenhousehistory for many centuries, butit’s prominence in the district was particularly highlighted on the night ofthe 14th March 1941. For the most part, Leeds escaped the worst of theLuftwaffe bombings during World War Two, but on the night in question,there was to be an exception to the general rule. In a sustained air-raidlasting until the early hours of the following morning, Beeston had morebombs dropped on it than any other district of Leeds. However, the areamiraculously sustained the least amount of damage.Thanks to the vast expanse of land covered by Cross Flatts Park, all buta single bomb fell relatively harmlessly on the grass here, with just onestreet, Flaxton Terrace, taking a direct hit. Tony Harrison, now a successfulpoet, hid in his cellar as a child in Beeston on the night of 14th March 1941.Harrison speculated in his 2005 poem ‘Shrapnel’, that the bombing of CrossFlatts Park may not have been a fortunate coincidence, but rather an act ofheroism by the German bomber-pilot. Harrison grew up in Tempest Road, tothe right side of the park as you are walking now, and attended Cross FlattsAs you re-enter the park, an ash tree before you has a number of bracket fungiprotruding from the main trunk, 6 to 8m above the ground. They look like half dinnerplates glued to the tree and unlike many fungi, are present all year round.36
County Primary School, also over the wall to your right, which has sincebeen replaced with a new building. It is said that indentations created by thebombs dropped that night can still be seen down the length of Cross FlattsPark if you look carefully, and that shrapnel may be found in the soil here.At the next junction of paths, turn left, and walk straight ahead.Pass ‘The Grange’ on your left and a pavilion on your right-hand side,ignoring smaller paths going off to the left and right. At the top of thepark, exit onto Beeston Road and walk back to the main park gates tocomplete the walk. From the main park gates, look across the street toHolbeck Cemetery.Where the gateway of the cemetery now stands, with the war memorialbeyond, the 1846 Holbeck tithe map shows two small buildings. Over yourleft shoulder, just inside Cross Flatts Park, a further building, also small, andrectangular in shape, is depicted.The two buildings at the gateway to Holbeck Cemetery were owned by theDevisees of the late George Banks and leased to William Leadley. The landsthey occupied were used for grass, and referenced by the field names, DoveCote Close and Near Bar Row Close. These names imply the buildings wereassociated with agriculture, but no mention of their specific usage is madein the Holbeck tithe apportionment. The land on which the two buildingsstood was taken to create Holbeck Cemetery in 1857. The facility cost£7000 to construct and originally contained two lodges and two chapels. Asingle lodge remains, but is now in private hands.A former Lord Mayor of Leeds, Henry Rowland Marsden, has a largememorial in the cemetery here, topped with a praying angel. Marsden wasborn in 1823 to poor parents in Holbeck, but emigrated to America in 1848,where he made his fortune in a successful career in mechanical engineering.Henry Marsden returned to Leeds in 1862, setting up a factory producingpatent stone-crushing machinery to meet the demand for road building.To your right, at the north-west corner of the games courts, are two ancienthawthorn trees. These may be remnants of a hedge running close to the accessroad to Cross Flatts that once marked the Beeston/Holbeck tithe boundary.The avenues and lines of trees in Cross Flatts Park offer a good feeding habitatfor bats, such as the common Pipistrelle which likes to roost in the roof-space ofhouses. Bats make good housemates and do not damage wires or woodwork.Watch out for them in the late evening as they twist and turn scooping up midges.The trees lining the main path through the park are a mixture of ash and sycamore.By measuring the circumference of one of these ash trees and observing standardgrowth rates for the species, West Yorkshire Ecology estimate that they are around90 years old, and were planted in 1919.37
Page 3: or abbey in the middle ages. There
Page 12: Marsden won many awards and medals

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